Let Them Eat Cake!
by Akino Ame
Summary: In the early days of the Kamen Rider Club, Kengo finds himself fending off a mysterious benefactor's cakes.
1. Cakewalk

It started with a cake.

A small cake, vanilla, iced in white with stripes of chocolate criss-crossing like Fourze's suit.

It read "Happy Birthday Fourze."

Gentaro had found it at home and immediately shared it with Yuuki, but he had no clue who it had come from. She didn't know, and she was curious if maybe Kengo knew.

Kengo, however, chalked it up to that mysterious sender who'd given him the Switch for Rabbit Hatch in the first place and didn't tell either of them about it. After all, that was his business—him and his dad—and he wasn't about to let Gentaro find out about it. If it meant Gentaro thought that Kengo had baked the cake, all it took was a blunt denial and sitting at the computer to try to figure out the next Switch to get him to shut up.

But after a million and one questions of where it had come from otherwise, Kengo was glad to have the peace and quiet of Rabbit Hatch to himself while Gentaro and Yuuki got lunch.

At least, it _was_ peaceful and quiet until he suddenly heard a tapping sound at the airlock. Almost like…

No, it was. Someone was knocking.

Suspicious, Kengo brought up video footage. Was it possible the Zodiarts had found them out? But no, it was someone in a spacesuit—not a monstrous Switcher.

An impossible hope filled him as he allowed the astronaut into the airlock and pressurized it before opening the door to the station. But that hope fell—not to disappointment; he knew better than to truly believe it could happen—when he saw that the astronaut wasn't his father miraculously alive. Instead, it was a woman carrying a box.

"Delivery from my boss," she said as she handed it over. "The Kougami Foundation is interested in your work."

"Kougami?" Kengo repeated incredulously. The Foundation was incredibly generous with its research grants, but how did they find out about the Astro Switches?

"Let's work together sometime," the woman replied, but briskly and professionally, not enthusiastically like Gentaro and Yuuki would.

She made her way out of the airlock, and Kengo decided to open the box. Inside was another cake—vanilla, just like the original—topped with forty sliced strawberries. A white chocolate plaque in the middle read, "Happy Birthday KRC."

Kengo was speechless for a moment and considered taking a space suit and going after her, but the idea sounded crazy even in his head.

After all, how exactly was he going to tell her, "It's not a club," when she'd gone through all the trouble of getting them a cake up here?

**_Kamen__ Rider_ is the property of Toei and Ishimori Productions.**


	2. Devil's food

Ever since then, it became a running tradition.

When Miu joined, a chiffon cake appeared, decorated in the school's colors with crowns along the side. JK's arrival resulted in a marble cake in flashily colored fondant. For Shun, it was a red velvet cake with similar decoration to Miu's, except that a marzipan miniature of the Power Dizer held up the "Happy Birthday" plaque. Tomoko had a devil's food cake with chocolate icing and dark chocolate lacy accents.

Every time one of the cakes appeared, everybody immediately stopped what they were doing and eagerly cut into it. Even Shun, who said he had to be careful with what he ate for football, set down the weights and ran over to the table when one arrived.

And nobody believed that Kengo wasn't behind it.

JK begged him to make them for his parties, Shun mentioned a couple of team functions that he'd like to bring one to, Tomoko quietly asked for the recipe, and Miu outright _ordered_ him to make them more often. Yuuki and Gentaro didn't help matters one bit by insisting that all they had to do was expand the club, ignoring Kengo's protests that first, he didn't make the cakes, and second, that the Kamen Rider Club did not exist.

His only hope was the Kougami Foundation itself, and one day after school, he blew off the Club—it was _not _a club!—in search of the main office of the Foundation. To his surprise, another motorcycle pulled up alongside him, escorting him to the building. The other rider brought the bike to a stop right in the front, next to a line of vending machines, and took off her helmet. Kengo wasn't surprised to see that she was the same woman who'd delivered the first cake.

"The President asked me to ride with you, just in case anything happened," she said.

There was too much that Kougami seemed to know, so Kengo couldn't help but bluntly ask, "You mean my health or an attack?"

The woman shrugged. "Either or. As long as I'm getting paid, I'm ready for anything."

It was a depressingly honest statement, and Kengo had to silently follow her inside the building and to President Kougami's office near the top of the building. He was able to pick out the office before the woman walked him in—the scent of cake was coming from one room in particular, and he felt his heart sink. Not another one. Sure enough, the President was at his desk, icing a cake while candy coins in red, yellow, and green sat in a bowl to the side.

"Sir," the woman said as she walked Kengo in. "Utahoshi Kengo."

"WONDERFUL!" Kougami bellowed. "Thank you, Satonaka."

Kengo had never had to confront anyone more important than the school nurse, so he knew he was probably botching the etiquette as he walked up to Kougami's desk. In a feat of humility that didn't come naturally to him, he bowed low and begged, "Please stop sending cakes!"

Kougami stopped icing his cake, and with a careful look at the teenager, he asked, "Why do you say that?"

Kengo risked a look at the CEO. Somehow, it had failed to occur to him that he was in the presence of one of the most powerful men in the world, a genius at business and wealthy financier who likely was used to getting everything that he wanted, and here, a second-year high school student was telling him to do something. And to stop doing something _generous_, at that.

It was more intimidating than the Zodiarts, and out of his nervousness bubbled the words "The others, they think that I'm making the cakes. They don't listen to me when I say it's not me, and they want me to make them more often, and I _can__'__t._ I don't even acknowledge that club of theirs, and they're still trying to bring me in and ask me to do this for everybody."

Kougami nodded with an unreadable expression on his face. It was strange; he appeared to be so boisterous at first glance, and yet Kengo couldn't figure him out. He had a feeling even with her strange powers of insight, Tomoko would be stumped by him.

"I see," he finally said. "So in your pride, you've come to me for this."

Kengo flinched at the criticism. It was even more striking than from anybody at school. "Yes, sir. I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Kougami insisted. "I admire that drive, but you must beware your pride. Do not let it get in the way of what you want."

What he _wanted_ was for everyone to stop bugging him about the cakes, but Kengo nodded and answered, "Yes, sir."

"There is so much desire in youth," he said. "Embrace it. The universe truly is _wonderful_ when you abandon self-consciousness and allow yourself to enjoy it."

Kengo mumbled another "Yes, sir," trying not to let on how he had heard pretty much the same spiel from almost every adult who envied the young. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the woman, Satonaka, was absorbed in a magazine, and he knew that he wasn't to expect her to escort him home as she had to the office.

"Sir," greeted a male voice, and Kengo looked behind him to see a pair of men with motorcycle helmets standing at attention. While both were serious, one seemed stiffer than the other, as if he were used to taking orders from Kougami.

"Goto, Izumi, thank you," Kougami replied. "These detectives are allies of mine. They will ensure you make it safely home."

Kengo remembered to bow as he followed the officers out, but as he began to walk down the hall, he heard Kougami remark, "Very familiar, that pride. But he too will come around." And for some reason, Detective Goto seemed to be hiding a smile while Detective Izumi had a bit of a distant look in his eyes.

Maybe Kengo shouldn't have lost courage before asking Kougami just how he knew so much.


	3. The icing on the cake

Kengo had never known his father, never had the chance. The man had died before Kengo was born. There was no body to visit, since JAXA couldn't send another ship to the moon to retrieve it, leaving Rabbit Hatch as his tomb. When Kengo had first gone to the base with Yuuki, he half-expected and half-hoped to find his father's body, but any hope at even a burial on the lunar soil was dashed when he realized that his father must have taken a spacesuit at the end and gone out and waited to die. It was what he'd told himself, at least, the precious delusion that his father had not wanted his son to be greeted by such a ghastly sight once he was able to come to Rabbit Hatch, and so he died watching the light of the Earth—so close and yet so distant—as if watching over his family.

But Kengo had never felt so close to his father's memory as he had when he thought he would meet the same fate. When he was trapped, when he burnt out his fear and stopped tearing apart his classmates'—his _friends'_—possessions. When he fashioned a makeshift flagpole from spare parts unneeded for Fourze and attached the Kamen Rider Club banner, then took a spacesuit and went out to the desolate surface to plant the flag and die just like he imagined his father had.

Except that Kengo was rescued when his father wasn't. He couldn't help but feel like maybe it hadn't just been Gentaro's determination, Tomoko's insight, JK's information-gathering, Miu's leadership, Shun's strength, and Yuuki's loyalty that had saved him.

Maybe it had been his dad protecting him too.

But the attack he'd had in the base had only been a precursor to a much worse one, and he'd been sent home when he collapsed in the middle of class. He spent most of the day in bed, a ripping pain in his skull and terrible weakness throughout his body, and yet he couldn't help but think of what his friends had done for him. How hard they'd fought, the sacrifices they'd been prepared to make, and the sacrifice they refused to make. They never let themselves think they'd leave him there to die, not like JAXA had left his father.

He was barely dozing when he came up with the idea, and in the haze of pain, weakness, and utter insanity, he pulled himself out of bed and stumbled his way to the kitchen, trying to gather the ingredients he expected he'd need: flour, sugar, eggs, oil. The eggs were easy enough—he only had to be careful that he didn't lose his grip on them completely. The oil wasn't hard to lift either. But the heavy bags of flour and sugar were out of the question. The flour slipped out of his hands and landed on the floor, sending up a plume of white powder that made him cough helplessly.

He heard a knock at the door, and he staggered his way over, trying to clear his lungs. He managed to get the door open, hearing the others before he saw them—Miu and Yuuki were expressing their worry, Tomoko was mumbling something, JK and Shun said something encouraging, and Gentaro confidently insisted everything was all right.

"Oi, Kengo, we wanted to…" Gentaro came to a stop when he saw that Kengo was covered in flour. "Wait, are you…"

"Don't try to bake in this state!" Yuuki insisted worriedly, coming over to his side.

They still thought the cakes had been his doing. He'd wanted to do something for them, to show his thanks, and this was the only thing he could think of. But with the way they were looking at him with a mix of worry and gratitude, he realized that even just the intent had been enough.

"Don't force yourself," Miu ordered. "Let us help."

"Yeah, if you're not feeling up to it," JK added.

"I can find a recipe," Tomoko said, holding up her tablet.

"We'll all work on it," Shun insisted. "You rest."

"Leave it to us," Gentaro said with a grin.

Kengo nodded as the club walked inside. They sat him down at the table and immediately got to work, following Tomoko's recipe—more or less. They all argued over what flavor they wanted and how they should decorate it, and right in the middle of mixing, Miu turned and accidentally brought up the mixer, splattering batter all over them.

The kitchen was a mess, the club members were a mess, and the cake was lopsided and undercooked, but they all agreed it was the best one they'd ever had.

And when Kengo returned to school the next day, he found a cupcake in his locker, topped with a small fondant moon.

He made up his mind that the next time the KRC decided to bake a cake, they'd have to send it to Kougami. It really seemed like the least he could do.

**And the final chapter. Thank you to everybody who's followed this surprising monster of a short crackfic. The part about Kengo never meeting his father is personal theory based on his grade level at school. He's in his second year, so he'd have to be about sixteen or just turned seventeen, so if his father was in space and died seventeen years ago, chances are low that they ever would have known one another. While it's possible that Kengo is seventeen or eighteen and was simply held back a grade because of his frequent illness, I figured it was better not to make that assumption unless canon said something first.**


End file.
